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Tour set to return to Britain

British fans got behind Wiggins and Team Sky from the 'Look Mum No Hands' cafe in London yesterdayDan Istitene/Getty Images

The Tour de France is set to return to Britain, with a Grand Départ in Yorkshire likely in 2014, seven years after a London Tour start attracted millions to the roadside.

Negotiations for a Leeds start to the three-week race, dominated this year by Londoner Bradley Wiggins, the first Briton to win the race, are well-advanced.

Yesterday, as Wiggins rode triumphantly into Paris, race director Christian Prudhomme gave the clearest indication yet that a second British Tour start is imminent.

Describing Wiggins’s success as “a great route into the English-speaking world,” Prudhomme added that “the bike is universal and when we came to London in 2007, we had an exceptional start, with four million people at the roadside.”